Youth Chess News

WCM Jacob Furfine Ties For 6th Place at 2017 World Youth in Under 16's in Uruguay; Aydin Turgut Ties for 9th in U14's

With an 11th round victory over India's Sarkar Rajdeep, Jacob Furfine secured a sixth-place tie in the Under 16 section at the 2017 World Youth.

The competition concluded September 26 in Montevideo, Uruguay.

At 7.5/11, Furfine was only a point back from the three-way co-champions who posted 8.5's.

Fellow Illinoisian Aydin Turgut posted 7.0/11 in the Under 14's, finishing in a ten-way tie for 9th place.

In the Under 14 Girls, Shreya Mangalam tied for 14th place with four others thanks to her 6.5/11 score. Aria Hoesley was only a point back with 5.5, tying for 27th out of more than 50 entries. WCM Marissa Li also posted 5.5 in the U16, tying for 25th place out of 60 entrants.

September 2017 Top 100's: Not-So-Terrible Two's!

Despite being shut out in the 11-year old ranks, Illinois posted 55 juniors in the top 100 nationwide as of the September ratings, ages 7 through 18. A couple players may have left but the state, but until they update their US Chess membership, we'll still claim them as native sons!

Three Illinois juniors rank number two in their respective age groups, Aren Emrikian (age 7 & under), Dimitar Mardov (age 9) and David Peng (age 14).

Yuvraj Chennareddy had an amazing summer, raising his rating to 1523 as a 7-year old, ranking 14th in the US now.

For the first time in recent memory, Illinois has two players in the top 10 of the same age group with George Li and Alex Bian rated 6th and 7th among US 17-year olds.

The complete September list is posted below. Events submitted prior to August 16 were included in these results.

Arthur Xu, Family, Reflect on World U10 Silver

At the recent 2017 World Youth in Brazil, Oak Park's Arthur Xu earned the silver medal in the Under 10 competition. With the World Cadets beginning this week, also in South America, Arthur and his supportive family were kind enough to share thoughts with the ICA website.

Arthur became the USA's U10 Official Representative ("OR") when Eric Li became the "Personal Rights" designee from winning a Gold medal in the Pan America Youth in July. As a result of this designation, Arthur received training from GM John Fedorowicz as assigned by US Chess.

Arthur's thoughts on the event: Before I went to Brazil I thought I could have a really good chance to get Top Three.